“Today we have seen something incredible, the UK parliament has passed Labour’s motion and become the first in the world to declare an environment and climate emergency.

“This can set off a wave of action from parliaments and governments around the globe. We pledge to work as closely as possible with countries that are serious about ending the climate catastrophe and make clear to US President Donald Trump that he cannot ignore international agreements and action on the climate crisis.

“Protesters and school-strikers told us to act. Governments never act without pressure and we must keep the pressure up. I’m proud that the Labour Party brought this motion to the House, and now we will carry on this work by developing our plans to deliver a Green Industrial Revolution.”

This blog will be featuring the Climate Emergency, the catastrophy of Climate Change far more in future. While I have to get upto speed with the arguments, I find the arguments of the climate change deniers very weak. You can hardly deny the established fact of catastrophic climate change when big oil was aware of it and had modelled it as early as the early eighties.

It’s not business as usual on Climate Change any more. Politicians will have to address climate change or they will simply not be elected. There is a very strong association between conservatives and insane climate change denial which is even more marked with the rabid Brexiteers.

The air we breathe, the water we drink, the earth we plant in, the food we eat, and the beauty and diversity of nature that nourishes our psychological well-being, all are being corrupted and compromised by the political and economic systems that promote and support our modern, consumer-focussed lifestyles.

We must act while we still can. What we are seeing now is nothing compared to what could come.

I’d like to know about the legal order that is applied to me. Super-injunction, hyper-injunction, DA-notice? WTF is it?

It appears that there is a fantastically restrictive legal order in place e.g restricting divulging my name. How on Earth can such a restrictive order be made without consulting or informing me? I object and should be given the opportunity to challenge it formally.

Super-injunctions are usually about keeping celebrities or rich businesmen’s extra-marital affairs secret. The point about super-injunctions is that the very existence of the injunction itself can’t be reported. It is therefore very difficult to find out anything about them.

I am keen to breach this injunction which I’ve never been advised of. Please send me the legal notice telling me not to.

It seems that this or similar legal orders have been in force for some considerable time. Decades ago I learned that ordinary PNC requests resulted in a visit from MI5 – which explains why very extreme measures were taken to identify me. Journalists would avoid me while campaigning in 2002/3.

There seem to be consequences so that I cannot plead not guilty at criminal trials. It follows that if I cannot have a fair hearing, then I should not be arrested.

There were efforts to detain me – I am not saying arrest since no rights would be afforded to me – on 6 July 2005. What effects would the order have on that?

12/4/19 It wasn’t me that hid this post. I wonder if it will stay up over the weekend …

Royal Air Force vehicles and supplies have sailed from Southampton to mark the start of a new RAF deployment to Estonia.

The RAF mission, announced last year by the Secretary of State for Defence Gavin Williamson MP, will see four RAF Coningsby based Typhoon jets
deploy to the Amari Air Base in Estonia. On arrival, they will conduct
NATO Air Policing activities over the summer alongside other NATO
Allies.

In Estonia, the RAF will complement the already deployed British Army Battlegroup that formed part of the NATO Enhanced Forward Presence mission. Both operations are a part of the British contribution to the NATO Assurance Measures agreed by the Alliance at the NATO summit held in Warsaw during 2014.

A range of strategic aircraft has been deployed to RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire

The US has deployed its full range of strategic bombers to Britain
for the first time in history amid growing tensions with Russia.

Two
bat-winged B-2 stealth bombers, three B-52H Stratofortress aircraft and
three B-1B Lancers are now lined up in Cold War pose at RAF Fairford in
Gloucestershire.

They are capable of delivering a nuclear strike, although none of those sent to Britain is armed with a nuclear weapon.

The Pentagon considered it necessary to remind Moscow of America’s capability at a time when Russia is adopting an increasingly aggressive military stance, including persistently sending strategic bomber patrols close to US, British and other Nato airspace.

Can we hit Richard Branson and everything Virgin for their role in attempting to usurp democracy in Venezuela? Branson held a live-aid themed concert in Columbia in support of Trump’s project to subvert democracy, start a war and steal oil again.

Branson likely has minority shareholdings in many Virgin companies but he is their gobshite and they are widely regarded as his companies. We ought to show that it is unacceptable for Branson to be such a cnut.

Virgin Media is a UK and Ireland internet provider (IP). Is it also active in the states? Many broadband deals are on offer in UK at the moment. Leave the gobshite behind, try to hit him in his pocket.

IPs generally: It’s good to simply hit the pause button if you’ve been with an IP for a while. They take you for granted if you just carry on paying. Ask them for a discounted rate.

You could cancel if you’re going away for 4 or 5 weeks. You can then push the play button with a better deal as a new customer. You might even have an excuse to go to the pub for a while to use the free broadband.

Brexiteers are overwhelmingly older while Remainers are overwhelmingly younger with the 50/50 or half (1/2) / half (1/2) split being at age 45 at the time of the Brexit referendum in 2016 so 47/48 now.

Many Brexiteers are familiar with fractional Imperial currency in UK and this is no doubt a part of the Great British Empire that they want to return to since everything British is so far superior to anything “bloody foreigners” do. Here is my rough guide to imperial currency in case we do Brexit.

Decimalisation – the conversion from imperial to decimal currency that we are now familiar with – occured in 1971 while the partial transition to decimal weights and distances occured in UK in 1995. I was 5 in 1971 (1971 – 5 = 1964, a leap year). I was born at home which was probably the norm back then with a midwife only attending for half an hour or so if at all or if there were complications. The vast majority of houses would have one cold water tap in the kitchen, coal fires, a tin bath that would be filled with hot water heated on a gas stove and used by the whole family once a week and an outside toilet at the bottom of the garden. Racism and discrimination was part of everyday life – common, accepted and expected. Foreign holidays started in the 70s but there was very little tolerance of that “foreign muck” – garlic, pizza, spaghetti and probably even lager.

Great British Empire currency and weights and measures was based on fractions. I can remember the coinage and notes and I was taught fractions and decimals at the many primary schools I attended.

There were 12 pennies (d) to a shilling (s), 20 shillings to a pound (£). There was also a half-penny, a ‘hapenny’. The notation was £/s/d so that prices might appear as £/2/11 or 2s/11. There was also a guinea which was 21 shillings – don’t know if there was a guinea note – that I think was only used for buying and selling horses. You would have ‘thrupence’ and 2 and half d coins. [Correction. There wasn’t a 2 and 1/2d coin 6d had the value of 2 and 1/2 new pence in the conversion to decimalisation. 2.5 new pence really but decimals weren’t really understood then.] Shillings were known as bobs so two shillings would be ‘two bob’. There was currency to the value of £2, probably a £2 note. Notes were huge back then and paper.

Speaking after Labour said it was still poised to back a ‘People’s Vote’, despite not pushing for one this week, Mr Hunt said “the wind is in the sails” of referendum backers and they were almost two-thirds of the way there.

He told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show: “We have an opportunity now to leave on March 29 or shortly thereafter.

“It’s very important we grasp that opportunity because there is wind in the sails of people trying to stop Brexit.”

…

[I quite liked that;)

Following Mr Hunt’s comments, Hard Brexit-backing Tory MP Steve Baker issued a thinly-veiled threat to those pushing for a second referendum.

He said: “The people who would stop Brexit should know just this: what you do, you’ll have do in public now.

“And everyone will know just what you have done.

“Stopping Brexit will be on you, not Brexiteers. Don’t kid yourselves otherwise.”

…

Comment by dizzy: Those opposed to Brexit, including myself, are participating in the democratic process. It is the strength of argument that is defeating Brexit. Making personal threats shows this Brexiteer to be inadequate as an MP.

Maintaining anonymity on this blog costs in the region of £10 a year and it’s due about December. I decided that I couldn’t afford it one year and my name appeared briefly on the domain name registration. I assumed that GCHQ, MI5 or some similar organisation was paying for it. I am very proud of my name – it’s a very good mostly Welsh name although lately I quite like Simples.

11/3/19 Done some research on Steve Baker now. He’s number two.

12/3/19 Simples is a reference to Theresa May’s response when asked essentially what happened to Brexit. It has a deeper meaning and has since been spun as something different

Unsurprisingly, protagonists on all sides in the Brexit debate are keen to claim that their views reflect the will of a majority of voters. After all, the decision to leave the EU was made by the public in the first place, so being able to argue that what should happen now is backed by voters is a potentially valuable currency in the political debate. Thus, the Prime Minister, for example, insists that in pursuing Brexit she is delivering ‘the Brexit people voted for‘, a vote that, she argues, should not be questioned by asking voters their view a second time. Opponents of Brexit, in contrast, often take the view that voters were misinformed – even misled – during the EU referendum, and now that they are more aware of the supposed downsides of leaving the EU they should be given the chance to register their second thoughts in a second ballot.

The intensity of this argument reflects, in part at least, the narrowness of the outcome of the referendum in June 2016. Against the backdrop of a 52% vote for Leave and 48% for Remain, not many voters would have to change their minds for the balance of opinion to be tilted in the opposite direction. So, with March 29 – the date when the UK is currently scheduled to leave the EU – rapidly approaching, where does the balance of opinion now lie on the principle of leaving the EU?

Regular users of our site will be aware that polls that have asked people how they would vote in another EU referendum have for some time been pointing to a small lead for Remain. For much of last year our poll of polls, a running average of the last half dozen readings of second referendum vote intentions, put Remain on 52% and Leave 48%, the mirror image of the outcome in 2016. However, given all the potential pitfalls of polling, such a lead was too narrow for anyone to be sure what the outcome would be if a second ballot were to be held.

In recent months, though, the Remain lead has grown somewhat in our poll of polls. By the beginning of October, it had crept up to Remain 53%, Leave 47%. Now, since the turn of the year it has increased further to Remain 54%, Leave 46%. This movement has also been replicated in the pattern of responses to the question that YouGov regularly ask, ‘In hindsight, do you think Britain was right or wrong to vote to leave the EU?’. Until the 2017 general election typically more people said that the decision to leave the EU was right than stated it was wrong. Since then, however, the oppose has been the case. Even so, by the spring of 2018, on average the proportion who said that the decision was wrong (45%) was still only three points higher than the proportion who said it was right (42%). However, in the readings that YouGov has taken in the last three months, that lead has grown on average to as much as eight points, with as many as 48% saying the decision was wrong, and only 40% that it was right.

Some 87% of people who were too young to cast a ballot in the 2016 Brexit referendum but have since reached voting age would “definitely” take part if a second public vote were called, according to a new poll. And of the estimated 2 million new young voters, 74% would back remain.

…

Separately, constituency-by-constituency analysis by YouGov of more than 25,000 voters shows that in only two out of 632 constituencies do a majority of voters want their MP to back Theresa May’s Brexit deal.

Commenting, Peter Kellner, a past president of YouGov, stated: “The coalition that produced a narrow majority for Brexit three years ago is falling apart. It brought together traditionalists in Conservative Britain who saw the EU as a threat to British values and sovereignty, with families in Labour’s heartlands who felt that ‘Brussels’ threatened their living standards and their children’s job prospects.

“The prime minister’s plan is unpopular essentially because few people in either group think it tackles the threat they face. The fact that only two constituencies in the entire country – not including her own – want their MP to support her deal shows just how risky it would be for the prime minister to force this deal on the people now.”

A no-deal Brexit would plunge the UK economy into recession and annual growth will slip below 1% this year for this first time since the financial crisis even if a deal is secured, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has warned.

The thinktank, which advises 34 of the world’s richest countries, said that even with a smooth Brexit, the UK economy would slump to 0.8% growth in 2019 from 1.4% in 2018 as Brexit uncertainty and Donald Trump’s trade war with China harmed the UK’s economic prospects. In November it was forecasting 1.4% growth for the UK this year.

The last time annual growth in the UK was below 1% was in the depths of the financial crisis, when the economy contracted by 4.2%.

The OECD said a steep fall in investment over the past year by UK-based firms had left the economy in a weak position to boost its poor productivity rates and increase wages growth.

The economic health check comes as a string of major manufacturing firms have made clear that their future in the UK is in doubt should the government fail to secure a transition arrangement that allows them to trade freely inside a customs union with the EU.

Toyota’s European boss, Johan van Zyl, said he could not promise British employees’ jobs were safe until the outcome of Brexit was decided.

Meanwhile, the BMW board member Peter Schwarzenbauer, who oversees the Mini and Rolls-Royce brands, said the firm might be forced to stop making the Mini at its Cowley plant near Oxford.

The OECD chief economist, Laurence Boone, said the UK had missed out on 0.7% of growth compared with the OECD’s previous projections and 1.7% of growth compared with the US, France and Germany.

“There is no better trade agreement for the UK than the EU single market. Every step back from this arrangement makes it more difficult for the private sector,” she said.

This is my own work looking at the influences behind various UK politicians. You are welcome to disagree with any point. It should be recognised and accepted that some politicians will not have any philosophical or ideological basis at all – many people simply unquestionably accept the politics and world-view of their parents. Some of them may also be mad or simply whores to power or financial gain.

Socialists are a diverse bunch often fighting injustice e.g. anti-racism, and campaign for human rights, universal healthcare, democracy, equality, workers’ rights, etc. There are more radical Socialists outside of parliamentary politics fragmented according to adherence to the different historical origins and aspects of Socialist Ideology. The Labour party catchphrase “For the many, not the few” catches the Socialist ethos perfectly.

Parliamentary Socialists are not that concerned with historical Socialist ideology. They will recognise and object to the vast inequalities in wealth and control of the media but that’s about it.

Neo-Liberals are Capitalists who believe that “the market will provide”. These are the ones who are keen on deregulation so that businesses are unhindered by “red tape” – actually laws and regulations that protect standards and ordinary people – and the privatisation of everything. Brexit is all to do with deregulation so Brexiteers are mostly Neo-Liberals.

Neo-Conservatives are Neo-Liberals with the added aspect that they are Zionists – supporters of the state of Israel. Theresa May and many of the Conservative party are Neo-Cons.

Rabid Zionists are extreme supporters of the state of Israel. These are the ones that make accusations of anti-Semitism within the Labour party. The Al Jazzera series ‘the Lobby’ shows that Israel is directing accusations of anti-Semitism and the Israeli embassy may deserve its own entry in this guide.

Appeasers to Zionism. Since Zionists are attempting to apply a veto on UK politicians there are those that appease them to gain advantage. Strangely, these are often found to be trombonists.

The DUP (Democratic Unionist Party). Theresa May’s minority government is supported by the DUP. In any abusive relationship, the party that needs the relationship least is in the position of power.

Simples

6/3/19 Apologies that I neglected the nationalists. I did intend to but was on a roll.

Brexit is all about deregulation so that vast swathes of laws and regulations can be torn up and burned. It’s for the rich and powerful to become more rich and powerful at the expense of everyone else. Dirty money and psyops stole the Brexit referendum. Economists are almost unanimously agreed that it is and will be disasterous for the UK economy for many decades. Forgive me, I thought that governments were about – or at least should be about – ensuring stability and continuity. I can see it being disasterous for the UK Conservative party for generations.

EU Food Regulations are high quality. US Food Regulations by contrast are abysmally poor. In negotiating trade deals with the US, the US are promoting/insisting on their standards.

US food standards allow a quantity of faeces in food for human consumption.

Insect-filled chocolates, rat hair-infested noodles, and orange juice containing maggots are just some of the “horrors” UK consumers could be forced to accept if post-Brexit Britain signs a wide-ranging trade deal with the USA.

In the US, producers adhere to a “Defects Levels Handbook,” which sets out the maximum number of foreign bodies like maggots, insect fragments and mould that can be in food products before they are put on the market.

For example, US producers are allowed to include up to 30 insect fragments in a 100g jar of peanut butter; as well as 11 rodent hairs in a 25g container of paprika; or 3mg of mammalian excreta (typically rat or mouse excrement) per each pound of ginger.

“We will have arrangements that we will be able to roll over from the European Union’s agreements, we hope to have around 40 of those. We hope we will have all of those in place by the time we go.

“There are about 70 countries and 40 agreements. We hope all of those ones will be ready because they are extensions of what we have at the moment. Of course we require the agreement of the countries involved. We have spoken to all 70 countries involved. They have all given agreement that they’d like to see that in place.”

He went onto say that he wanted the UK to take advantage of ‘being able to negotiate beyond the European Union’s borders’.

“We’ve got 14 working groups in place with 21 countries at the present time I’d hope to make as much progress as possible because we need to have a confident and optimistic agenda for Britain’s future,” he said. He told the BBC trade talks had begun with Australia, New Zealand and the USA.

Of course it was total hogwash. While Fox was busy racking up air miles and getting nowhere fast in negotiating these phantom trade deals, others were warning that the 40 countries would not just be rolled over – and why should they?

The UK was leaving the EU – and they would squeeze the UK for everything they could get. These countries would also want to see what sort of deal the UK struck with the EU.

Dr. Fox was given regular reminders by industry and unions that it took the EU over seven years to negotiate the EU-Canada deal (CETA). But he carried on ‘grandstanding’, to quote Labour’s shadow trade secretary Barry Gardiner.

That was until last week, when he was forced to admit it was not going as well as expected. Fox had to admit that the government was significantly behind in securing the 40 free trade deals with only a handful agreed so far.

It appears only six of the 40 deals are likely to be in place by Brexit day: 30 deals that need to be ready are now considered ‘off-track’.

…

The progress in replicating the EU free trade deals so far amounts to just £16bn of the possible £117bn the 40 agreements cover.

[In] just over five weeks time, Fox can head to Washington to face the most experienced negotiating team in the world, determined to force Britain to accept chlorine-washed chickens and allow big business to get its hands on the NHS. This is not scare-mongering. We know precisely what US multinationals want because they told us last month: standard-slashing policies that includes allowing meat filled with antibiotics and steroids onto our shelves, as well as vegetables covered in chemical residues and milk with more pus in it. And less labelling on that food. It includes more expensive medicines, costing the NHS billions of pounds, and new data rules allowing Big Tech to use and abuse your data at will. It includes more GMOs, and worse chemical standards, and a corporate court which can be used by US multinational to challenge government decisions. By and large, the US administration agrees with this wish list.

The threat to the NHS is mostly that posed by the corporate court system. And it is not made up. Stewart Hosie pointed out how it might affect government decisions yesterday in parliament:

“In Scotland, when cleaning was contracted to the private sector, hospital-acquired infection rates went up. We then took a decision to bring back NHS cleaners, and hospital-acquired infection rates came down. Had that contract been won under the terms of one of these agreements, we could have been sued and challenged.”

Most of this won’t concern Fox, who seems to know “the price of everything and the value of nothing”. His belief is that the free market will work its magic to provide us with cheaper goods, and that will be beneficial for consumers. No matter that consumers are largely also producers – and that some cheap clothes made in appalling conditions doesn’t make up for losing your job. Fox is full throated in his support of ISDS, and yesterday said that the EU-Canada deal CETA was a great basis for future UK deals. CETA also includes ISDS.

It’s happened again. I was hoping to post no more politics, going hwylio to watch whales and Orcas while I’m still able to. I actually own my own super yacht. No, not a superyacht – she’s a cheap super classic old yacht with sails and a small inboard engine expertly designed. She sails superbly and looks after me. Being a very experienced and competent motorcyclist I draw an analogy between motorcycling and sailing. When you’re learning to ride a bike you’re going to have a few mishaps and that’s certainly happened to me while sailing. The point is that you learn through those mishaps and can only gain experience through experience.

Since insulting the rich I’ve noticed some changes to my internet experience. Tor is getting blocked and it’s affecting SSL encryption over http. Encryption is targetted.

Insulting the rich is not a crime as far as I’m aware and is instead a legitimate political perspective and argument. The rich are not used to being insulted of course and are instead repeatedly told that they are wonderful and great.

There is an attempt to personify the anti-Capitalist vs. anti-anti-Capitalist debate and the related Capitalist campaign to usurp democracy and steal oil again. The message is far bigger than me and out there everywhere. I am one independent, solitary political blogger. WTF is Richard Branson doing involved in this?

It’s Climate Change o’clock and we need to transition to a new form of politics for the sake of the planet and it’s inhabitants. We really are all in this together.

The planet can’t afford such an unequal distribution of wealth, big oil, wars and the arms trade, nuclear power, such extreme, unnecessary and futile transport and transportation, privately owned islands or superyachts. It’s only a very tiny minority that benefits from all this nonsense at the expense of the planet.

Brexit is all about deregulation so that a vast swathe of laws and regulations can be torn up and burned. It’s for the rich and powerful to become more rich and powerful at the expense of everyone else. Dirty money and psyops stole the Brexit referendum. Economists are almost unanimously agreed that it is and will be disasterous for the UK economy for many decades. Forgive me, I thought that governments were about – or at least should be about – ensuring stability and continuity. I can see it being disasterous for the UK Conservative party for generations.